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One of Australia’s longest-serving literary festival directors, who stood her ground during a national firestorm over free speech and curatorial independence, has been appointed to Adelaide Writers’ Week (AWW) and says she doesn’t intend to “throw authors under the bus”.
Rosemarie Milsom will step into the high-profile role vacated by Louise Adler, who resigned amid the implosion that followed the Adelaide Festival board’s decision to uninvite Palestinian-Australian writer and academic Dr Randa Abdel-Fattah. A subsequent writers’ boycott forced the cancellation of AWW, which operates under the broader festival umbrella, in 2026.
Milsom has received assurances from the new Adelaide board that she will be granted full curatorial independence and be able to program without interference. “I don’t believe in cancelling artists and am committed to freedom of expression within the limits of the law. That’s who I am,” she said.
Milsom is the founding director of the Newcastle Writers Festival – the first significant NSW literary festival scheduled after the Bondi terrorist attack and Adelaide’s cancellation. She resisted sustained pressure to withdraw the invitation to Abdel-Fattah, which had been issued following the release of the academic’s first adult fiction work, Discipline.
NSW Premier Chris Minns described the festival as “crazy” for booking the author after she was removed from the Adelaide line-up. “I don’t know why these organisations do it,” he said at the time. “I think they are crazy to invite that author when you think about how divisive it is, and how difficult it would be for the organisation as a result of the notoriety.”
Newcastle subsequently recorded a 27 per cent increase in attendance, and Abdel-Fattah’s first session sold out. The author received a standing ovation at her second session – the festival’s closing event – attended by 500 people. As revealed by this masthead, Abdel-Fattah is also set to appear at the Sydney Writers’ Festival next month.
“The minute Adelaide was cancelled, I couldn’t – didn’t – sleep a full night until the Newcastle Writers Festival,” Milsom said. “I have no regrets. I mean, it was never in the conversation to disinvite Randa.”
Milsom’s appointment was announced just days after Discipline was shortlisted for the NSW Literary Awards in the Multicultural category. It was also named the People’s Choice in the Victorian Premier’s Literary Awards.
Former AWW director Louise Adler says Milsom has made Newcastle into one of Australia’s significant literary festivals. “She comes with a great track record, a wealth of experience and the 21st-century equivalent of a great Rolodex; I think she will do a brilliant job,” she says.
In the aftermath of the writers’ boycott, Adler’s resignation left Adelaide Writers’ Week – one of the oldest and most respected literary festivals in the world – in a state of flux.
“I’m not going to gloss over what happened this year in Adelaide,” Milsom told this masthead. “It’s regrettable, and there is some repair that has to be done. That’s one of the skill sets I have, and I don’t back away from that. There is a need for leadership – strong, principled leadership in the curatorial space – because we are navigating a very contentious period, and it’s not just affecting the arts.”
Abdel-Fattah has previously come under fire for social media posts stating that Zionists had “no claim to cultural safety” and that institutions considering the “fragile feelings of Zionists” were “abhorrent”. She maintained those comments were taken out of context.
She was also criticised for posting an illustration of a paraglider with a Palestinian flag parachute as her Facebook profile photo the day after the October 7, 2023, attack on Israel by Hamas. Zionist Federation of Australia president Jeremy Leibler accused Abdel-Fattah of celebrating the attack. Abdel-Fattah has since said she was not aware of the scale of the attack at the time.
Milsom says she is drawn to a style of storytelling that harks back to her previous career as a section editor for Sydney’s The Sun-Herald newspaper.
“I will try to find a sense of balance between local and international voices, different perspectives, and established versus emerging writers. I want a program that is cohesive, engaging, and entertaining.”
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